


Dissections

by shipshape_sheep



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Emotional and physical scars, Empathy, Established relationship (kind of), M/M, Manipulation, Roleplay (Will as Hannibal), Spoilers for Red Dragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 02:31:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipshape_sheep/pseuds/shipshape_sheep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will is getting addicted to these cell visits. Hannibal uses this to his advantage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The smells hit him first. Sweat, piss, bleach, those prison cliches; mildew in the stone walls; lemon disinfectant so harsh Will tastes its bitterness on his tongue with every breath. Blue-white fluorescent lights sputter, each bulb at its own rhythm. Industrial washers chug somewhere in the basement, broken wheels screech and scud over tile as someone pushes a trolley down a long hallway, a man with a cracked voice laughs alone in his cell—not really laughing but pronouncing “ha, ha, ha” with brutal, measured deliberation.

This is a bad place. Will can feel its awfulness seeping into his skin, the way the stench of death settles into your clothes and hair. The way an ugly memory lingers. This is a hole dug out of the earth, a place for hiding monsters. A torture pit. A stagnant, airless hell. Will looks down the dark corridor, down into the dungeon crawlspace where his friend is being kept, and he feels a pang in his chest. This is wrong, he thinks, sweat breaking out on his forehead despite the chill. This is unjust.

Will clenches his fists, hard enough for the nails to dig into flesh, and reminds himself.  
 _It was unjust that he murdered all those people._  
 _It was unjust that he manipulated your trust, lied to you, wounded you, left you for dead._  
 _It was unjust that he kissed you with a mouth that had dined on stolen flesh._

He reminded himself of these facts the first time he was forced to walk into this place. And the second. And the third. And now, horribly, he begins to realize that he is no longer forced. He steps into hell willingly. The dreams he has about this place, the stink and the cold and the roar of machines, the animal that waits for him in a glass cage, are not nightmares. Not anymore.

Will walks down the hallway, sure and steady. His footsteps echo in the cool, damp, subterranean air. Eyes mark his passage from behind smeary reinforced glass. Some of the eyes are wet with tears, some of them are wild and darting and feverish, some of them are chillingly sane. Will stares at the tile under his feet. He feels the energy of those hungry gazes against the back of his neck, prickling and feverish.

“Back so soon?” There might be a mocking edge in Hannibal's voice, but he speaks so softly it's hard to tell. “How long will it be, I wonder, until you run out of excuses?”

Will grits his teeth, ignores him. He finds it difficult to look directly at Hannibal. The wrongness of his ill-fitting white jumpsuit, the wrongness of his ragged institution haircut, the wrongness of Hannibal surrounded by grimy brick instead of neat bookshelves. “Your former patient will kill again before the week is out. He's getting sloppy. We almost caught him in a cheap motel, he climbed out the window. Figured you would find that embarrassing.”

“Lawrence always was impulsive.” Lawrence Dell, thirty-six, has been murdering women who resemble his mother for two months. He's up to four now. Will can see his own pale reflection in the clear barrier better than he can see Hannibal's face. Hannibal sits on the edge of his cot, half in shadow, only his clasped hands and gleaming eyes visible. “But what about you? Did you come here following a whim? Probably not—I believe you've learned your lesson on following whims.”

Will feels an electric tingle in the fading scar on his abdomen. “I need to know where Lawrence Dell is going before another woman dies.”

“Surely, with all your considerable gifts, you can crack open the skull of someone like Lawrence without much trouble. Or have you gotten rusty?” Hannibal leans forward a bit, and Will can see the exact color of his deep-set eyes, the deep shadows of his cheekbones, the curve of his mouth. Memory hits Will, a sensory assault—the bitter taste of Hannibal's saliva, the hard press of his teeth, his big hand, faintly calloused, slipping under Will's flannel shirt and caressing the smooth skin he would soon irreparably mark. 

He feels his face flush and his irises flare and he knows Hannibal is watching all this, filing Will's embarrassed arousal away to chuckle over in his dark, empty cell. “Five visits in just two weeks. Of course it hasn't escaped you that you're coming to see me at the same times we used to meet as patient and therapist.”

“You're the one who's slipping,” Will hisses, and wants to cringe at the raw hostility in his voice. “Are you trying to get a rise out of me? You didn't used to be this..”

“Blunt?”

“Clumsy. Brutally clumsy.”

“I have always been brutal.” Hannibal's smile is gentle and sweet. Will's mouth is dry and bitter and he wants to slam his fists into the glass until his hands bruise and bleed. “Now I can afford to be honest. I know where Lawrence is going.”

“But you won't tell me.”

“Five visits and you're still frightened to get close to the glass. Come closer. Please.” Hannibal stands, his tall body unfolding. Will takes two steps forward. It's not fear that makes his steps slow and hesitant, but an indignant rage that burns in his blood like acid. _Look where you are,_ he wants to spit into Hannibal's smooth, peaceful face. _Look what you've done to yourself._ His heartbeat strobes in his throat, choking him. His temples throb hotly. Hannibal presses pale fingertips to the glass. “I'm concerned for you, Will. I've made you afraid to trust your own instincts. You've lost faith in yourself. I consider this a terrible pity.”

Will's face contorts in disgust. “Are you trying to apologize to me?”

“No. Merely making a preface to a request.” Hannibal tilts his head forward just slightly, and Will knows if it wasn't for the glass, Hannibal would reach out like he used to in their sessions—touch Will's shoulder, brush his fingertips through his hair, cradle the back of his neck. Will's body aches for that kind of physical grounding. He pushes the desire down deep, sucking in his breath and balling his hands into painful fists. “I want to know how you caught me.”

“You know that already.” Will feels his face burning. How is Hannibal so pale and calm and serene? He is the one who should be panting and humiliated, reduced to a prisoner in the filthiest of cages. But Will is the one unable to keep his shameful, unwanted fantasies out of his head, tormented by the memory of Hannibal's mouth tracing his collarbone, the way their hipbones nestled comfortably together, the sensation of Hannibal's breath stirring the fine hairs at the nape of Will's neck.

No matter what the circumstance—even staring down the man who put him in prison for life—Hannibal still has the upper hand. Will wants to hate him for this, but only feels a smolder of grudging admiration. Even in this hellhole, Hannibal has his dignity, his power, his strength. The kind of strength Will longs to lean into, letting it hold his weight.

Hannibal's hands are clasped in front of him now (long fingers grasping Will's thighs, long fingers tracing the angle of his jaw, long fingers wrapped around the handle of the knife plunged halfway into Will's belly) and there is a faint, implacable smile on his lips. Hannibal's perfect calm is cruel, relentless, mocking. “I don't want cold words in a courtroom. I want to see how you worked through it. Your process, beginning to end. That's the price I ask.”

“You want to know where you slipped up?” Will asks incredulously. He knows he should just leave. That would be the normal, healthy, productive thing to do. Go back to case reports and morgue lockers. Go back to his bed drenched with sleepless sweat. It doesn't matter where he goes. A part of him will always be standing here, cold tile under his feet, the roar of machines somewhere deep underground, Hannibal's eyes bright in the shadows.

“No. Facts would only bore me. Take me apart. Show me what I am.” Will is unable to suppress a shiver. He wants the electric heat that prickles on the back of his neck to be unpleasant, but god, it isn't. “Become me.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Become me._ An almost playful request. Abruptly Will remembers a firm hand on his lower back, a mouth that tastes like wine and copper.

“Hard to come up with a purer example of narcissism.” Will's voice comes out hoarse and strange.

“I don't expect a flattering portrait.”

Will feels his upper lip lifting in disgust, like a threatened animal. “Don't expect anything.”

“This isn't an exercise in self-gratification—at least, it's not meant to be.” Hannibal runs his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. Will mirrors the gesture unconsciously, as if preparing to feed. He feels combustible, on the verge of screaming or exploding or smoldering into ash. “Think of this as a final session. One last exercise.”

“You don't treat me anymore,” Will says, spitting out the words like a foul taste, his eyes hot in his skull. “Really, you're no use to me at all.”

He leaves, and for once Hannibal lets him have the last word.

They find the fifth victim's body in a weed-choked parking lot behind a gas station. Late forties, blonde, square-jawed—like Lawrence Dell's mother, like all the other women. Her empty blue eyes reflect the fading sunlight like chips of glass. The air smells like stale grease and exhaust. Will feels the heavy late summer heat on the back of his neck, in his hair.

Sloppy work. Strangled, disposed of hastily, ritual left incomplete. Still, Lawrence is gone. _If you pushed yourself harder, he'd already be caught. There wouldn't be a body here._ Hannibal's voice in his head. Jack Crawford watching him from across the overgrown lot, a terrible stretched quality to his face—frustration, badly disguised pity.

Bedsheets cold with sweat. The dogs howl when the crickets get too loud, each at a different pitch. Will dreams of a rainstorm outside of an office window, the sweet dusty smell of antique books, Hannibal murmuring in his ear as he smooths his thumb along Will's collarbone. Will dreams of metallic blood flooding over his tongue. He dreams he is the one behind glass, and Hannibal watches him not with pity but with warm and genuine admiration, the way you admire the beautiful colors in a specimen's wings.

He goes to visit Hannibal the next morning. Seven AM, the sky a washed-out, detuned gray, the heat not yet oppressive. Hannibal is out for exercise in a solitary patch of concrete hemmed in by stained brick. His ankles are shackled to an iron tether. Will watches him pace for a while without saying anything, listening to the rustle of a robin's wings as it flutters from one brick wall to the next, trying to concentrate on nothing else.

"I thought the cell was the worst place I'd ever visited,” he says, finally.

“They found another body, I expect.” The chain clicks and drags against concrete. Hannibal keeps his face aimed upwards towards the hemmed-in square of sky. “Did Jack bargain with you to come here? Or was it the other way around?”

Will looks steadily at the man who tried to kill him. Will isn't sweating or blushing or gritting his teeth now. He could be made of marble, tempered steel, granite. Something cool and unyeilding. “No one knows I'm here.”

“Just like old times, ah, Will?” Hannibal smiles at him. The pale sunlight reveals the things incarceration has done to his face, the sketched lines and hollows. The skull underneath the flesh more prominent. “Furtive and secret.”

“After today, this is over. No more games. No more tests.” Will stares past Hannibal, past the weathered bricks, past everything into the colorless void that only he can see. “You don't get to decide how to make me better anymore.”

“I will respect your request,” Hannibal says mildly. He has stopped pacing. The way he holds his body is too still, muscles tense, his face closed but watchful.

Will closes his eyes, exhales, and begins.

“Most killers who eat their trophies do it out of loneliness. A desire to keep the victims close, a kind of ultimate intimacy. But you don't.”

“'I.' Not 'you.'” In the red darkness behind his eyelids, Will can hear the smile in Hannibal's voice. “No artificial abstractions. You'll spoil things.”

“I...” Will's voice roughens on the pronoun for a moment, and then he recovers. He opens his eyes, but now the brick walls and cracked concrete have vanished. Dark woods surround him, pines rustling with rain. The night sky is empty of stars. The air is cool. He sees himself, Will, standing in the underbrush, consumed in a halo of fire. “I don't express my loneliness in that way. I eat them because it's clever. I'm giving them what they deserve. A complete punishment, a thorough degradation, robbing dignity from those who deny dignity to others. The rude and the ignorant. The undeserving of mercy.” His voice lilts up and down, barely perceptible variations in pitch and inflection. An unconscious imitation.

“But I am lonely.” Hannibal's voice echoes inside his skull, familiar as thought.

“Yes. Everything I do is in service of a joke. An elaborate joke I am unable to share with anyone else.” In the kitchen. The smell of fresh herbs and blood. Slicing through a cut of vivid purple-red meat, transferring it to a polished white plate. 

“That's why I serve my victims to others. Why I put so much attention to the presentation. Why I work closely with those who might indirectly observe my crimes. I am my only audience, so I try to amuse myself as much as I can.” Sliding the plate forward. Will sits up in a chair, the guest being served, eyes glazed white marbles, deep cuts of flesh missing. Bloodlessly dissected. Partially butchered, beautifully and with great skill.

“There is something missing,” Hannibal's voice says from nowhere in particular. “Where is Will Graham?”

“Will is...someone I want to keep close to me. I recognize him. We both are consumed by things we can never share with anyone else.” Will watching him from the other side of the glass wall. The hostility in his face is raw, hungry, thrilling. Blood pours from the wound in his stomach, velvety and slow and constant. “I can see myself better in him than anyone else. He is my best mirror.”

“So why kill him?”

“Practical reasons. I discarded sentimentality a long time ago.” Will, eyes savage and pleading, presses a palm to his abdomen and imprints a perfect red handprint onto the glass. “I regret what I did. Not trying to kill him, but—breaking him. Crippling his gift. Depriving him of the element that makes him useful to others. That's why I bargain and needle and provoke. I'm trying to undo a shameful mistake.”

“Very good, Will.”

Blood sliding down the glass in ruby droplets. The noise of machinery deep underground, ceaseless, loud, awful. Institution smells and the wet taste of subterranean air thick in his mouth like a gag. 

The sudden scrape of metal against concrete makes the vision blur. “Will.” Hannibal's voice, very near now. Firm. Reminding him of his name. “Good. That's enough.”

Will opens his eyes. Hannibal is very close now, as close as the chains will allow him. Will can detect the rhythm of Hannibal's breathing, quick and elevated. His breathing rises to match it, a process he cannot control.

Sound of a guard's voice, in the shadows by the heavy iron doors: “Hey!”

“It's okay,” Will shouts to the uniformed man, his voice husky and weak, raising a hand. His eyes are stinging. He realize they are full of tears. He wipes his eyes clear with the heel of his hands, getting himself under control. His knees tremble. His blood feels like lukewarm water.

“Markstown, North Carolina. That's where he is.” Hannibal takes a polite step backwards. Tall, straight-backed, at ease. No longer desperate. At last satisfied. His eyes are dark and knowing as he examines Will, the way he sometimes looked at him after sex, as if they were both sharing a delicious private joke together. “Although, it's obvious you could see that for yourself, with very little effort.”

Will says nothing, his mouth pressed into an invisible line. Part of him wants to say thank you. Part of him wants to slam into Hannibal's chest with both fists, lash at him until the satisfaction drains from Hannibal's gaunt face. Or kiss him fully on the mouth, in the way he once did, hard and hungry and unsentimental.

Will says nothing, breaks eye contact. A delicate mapwork of cracks marks the weather-bleached concrete, as fine as neurons. Two birds sing, harsh and unmusical, slightly out of sync. He starts to walk away.

“I am grateful, Will,” Hannibal calls after him. “For your mercy. For all you have given me.”

To his disgust, to his heartbroken wonder, Will believes him.


End file.
